The Great Kat: From Juilliard To Shred Goddess

For those about to rock, The Great Kat - in one of her tamer photos - salutes you.

Rocks Off has collected some very, very off-the-wall people over the years in search of musical enjoyment. We thought Cory Sinclair of The Manichean was until we interviewed Tyagaraja and realized he might actually be a Jedi. We always thrilled to hear the psychotic scienctific ravings of Dr. Milo T. Pinkerton III of Consortium of Genius, but he was ultimately topped by the hallucination-inducing rhetoric of Tubby Chubcakes. And now... we come to The Great Kat.

Kat is a Julliard-trained violinist who traded in the sedate world of classical performance to dress like a road warrior and play the guitar just shy of the speed needed to go back in time. She sent along her latest CD, Beethoven Shreds, and being both the resident classical-music expert on staff as well as the only one who has had a restraining order filed against him by Lita Ford - Ed. Note: He wishes - Rocks Off felt that it was well within our capabilities to kill seven minutes and several thousand brain cells by listening to it.

That's a lie; it's not seven minutes long. It's seven minutes and two seconds long, and in that short span of time Kat attacks the main theme from Beethoven's "5th Symphony," one of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos as well as his "Art of the Fugue." Works by Paganini and Rimsky-Korsakov round out the disc.

What you experience when immersed in Kat's world is perception turned up as far as it will go. These are melodies that in some cases have survived centuries and come down to us as the work of masters in their most musical moments. Kat forces these melodies through a black hole and back out again through in a white-hot stream of incredibly fine sound particles that ascend and descend so quickly and accurately that one could debate whether the interpretations are a performance or a weapon.

Tucked into the middle of the CD are two of Kat's originals, "Torture Technique" and "IslamoFascists." In addition to her guitar work the spices feature Kat's cookie-monster vocals in a combined two minute hate. The songs seem strangely at home among the pillars of composition through the purity of her approach. Somewhere we doubt if they'll be handed down like Paganini's "Caprice #24" has been, but for those who have thus far enjoyed the carnival ride of Beethoven Shreds should have no problem putting Kat's statue alongside the greats.

Kat sat down with us for a nice quiet chat about the CD. Just kidding, it was an orgy of shouting and metal. We learned lots, though not why she speaks in the third person. You'll just have to guess.

Rocks Off: I work in a sheet-music store, and we hear a lot of classical music. Most of it is much more sedate than your interpretations. Why speed it up and shred it apart?

The Great Kat: It must be fast and shredded to get the Internet-driven, fast-moving global society to understand the genius of classical music.

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That's what I love the most about her. She talks to her fans! She's not a stuck-up, snotty diva. She's an ass-kicking, extremely hot, guitar-shredding diva! Now excuse me while I bow down to her greatness...

I had no idea you were looking into The Great Kat! I picked up "Beethoven on Speed" back in high school when I first started playing guitar (It was $.99 at a pawn shop). I totally wanted to hang out with Kat and learn some licks from her. She's got some face-melting shred abilities. Both on violin, and guitar. I emailed her when I got my first free hotmail (pre-microsoft) address asking if she could sign a poster for me. She promptly replied "If you buy one!". Well I can afford to now!